Pure and Simple
by Sioux99
Summary: People keep dropping dead around John Watson.  Post Reichenbach Falls.  Grief.


Pure and Simple

By Sioux

Post Reichenbach Falls.

John watched, horrified, as Sherlock spread his arms like wings and in slow motion he leaned forward until gravity placed her inexorable hold on this, one of her most enigmatic, arrogant of sons, and brought him down to clasp him to her unyielding bosom.

John screamed his name; despair tearing at his heart, taking his voice. He couldn't move, couldn't get to his friend's side. He desperately wanted to barge through the crowd of people who blocked Sherlock from his sight but it was as if he was a ghost; no-one moved, no-one heard his whispered entreaties.

Then they bore his body away putting him on a trolley and wheeling him into the arched entrance of a long, dark tunnel. Pushing himself John set off after him. He ran and ran but the tunnel kept getting longer and darker and the people wheeling Sherlock's body away were moving so quickly he was already out of sight.

'Please!' Please wait!' he shouted, tears running unheeded down his face.

Someone behind him was shouting too but John couldn't see who it was. The man sounded desperate as he shouted,

'Sherlock!'

John shot up in bed breathing hard, his heart hammering at his ribs, his face and body damp with perspiration and tears.

Grey dawn was leaking in around the edge of the curtains as he wiped his face with his hand. He cried softly for a few seconds until with a final sniff he took a several deep breaths and steeled himself. He contemplated trying to go back to sleep again but dismissed the idea. It was after five now and he had morning surgery starting at eight.

As he'd found out three days ago on the first day he was sent to Brookfields Surgery it was easier to walk rather than take the bus or tube, even if it did take longer he wasn't crushed into a tin can with hundreds of other commuters.

Slowly he got out of bed, made it up neatly, showered and dressed then stopped like a run down clockwork toy.

There were no other sounds in the flat. No rustling of newspapers, typing on keyboards. No demands for tea or breakfast. Just him, quietly going about the business of existing. Sinking down on the sofa he looked around. The scientific equipment was boxed up and had been left in Sherlock's bedroom but everything else was as it had been.

The day of the funeral Mycroft had called him to say the rent was taken care of and that he could stay at 221b for as long as he wished. John hadn't enquired very closely into the arrangement at the time, he didn't have the heart, but now that he was working again, he fully intended to speak to Mycroft again and make at least some kind of financial contribution.

A couple of days after Mycroft's call, after he and Mrs Hudson had visited Sherlock's grave, he'd taken leave of Harry, much to their mutual relief and moved back into 221b. Then he'd put himself on the bank as a locum doctor. It meant covering practices over a large area of London and some on-call work at night and weekends but it kept him occupied and tired enough so he didn't have too much time to brood, plus it gave him another source of income apart from his army pension. And as long as he kept his stoic soldier's face on, no-one knew how cracked and broken he was feeling on the inside.

The sound of the chimes striking the hour roused him from his introspection. It had been taking forty-five minutes to walk to Brookfields Surgery but he liked to be a little early, give himself time to get settled before the first patients.

He put his coat on but instead of heading downstairs to the outside door he made a detour. Carefully pushing open Sherlock's bedroom door he walked across the room and pulled the curtains back; as he head been doing every morning since he'd moved back. He pulled them across every evening before retiring too. He admitted to himself it was a silly ritual but it gave him comfort. He left the bedroom door ajar before leaving the flat and locking the door behind him.

Mrs Hudson's door was slightly open as he knocked.

'Mrs Hudson?'

'John?'

'Yes, you alright?'

'Yes dear, I just wanted to let you know I'm going to the grave on Saturday. It's a month since we were there last, I want to tidy it up, you know. I wondered if you wanted to come with me?'

'Umm, can I let you know? Don't know if they want me to be on-call this weekend.'

'Yes, of course you can. You just off to work now?'

He nodded and produced a smile for her.

'Have a good day. I'll see you this evening.'

The thought of visiting the grave kept him occupied nearly all the way to Brookfields. In some ways it felt like a thousand years since that day when he'd stood at his friend's grave that first time and tearfully asked Sherlock to not be dead. In other ways it felt like yesterday. Since then he and Mrs H had visited the cemetery faithfully every month for the last three months. Like his ritual with the curtains, it was becoming a comforting routine. Mrs Hudson and he would tidy up the grave, replace the dead flowers with fresh ones then she would walk slowly back to the entrance and wait whilst he stood, or sometimes crouched, beside the black marble marker to tell Sherlock what had been happening in his life since the last time. It usually revolved around work and which surgeries he'd been asked to cover, nothing particularly mind-blowing or exciting. Then he would place his hand against the cold incised gold lettering for a few seconds, his heart clenching painfully, before standing, making his obeisance to his friend, meeting with Mrs Hudson and finding some time on the way to wipe his eyes.

On his journeys to the various medical practices one thing he hadn't bargained on was the number of times he thought he'd seen Sherlock; the swish of a coat sometimes or a tall, very slim man with dark curly hair seen out of the corner of his eye who would disappear as soon as he looked properly. The first few times it had happened he had stopped and turned towards the figure only to find his mind was playing him false. Intellectually he knew it was part of the grieving process but emotionally it was tough thinking he'd caught sight of the one person he physically ached to see before his conscious mind reminded him that couldn't ever happen again. Although, as time went on, he was getting better at ignoring these phantoms.

John picked up a copy of The Metro at one of the tube stations along his route; it would do for something to flick through. Four doors away from the surgery there was a coffee shop, the Java Bean, where he'd been stopping for a large coffee before work. He needed the hit of caffeine to counteract his poor sleep. Waiting in the queue after giving his order, vanilla latte, grande, and paying for it, he scanned the front page of the paper. The headlines dealt with the upcoming travel plans for the Olympics which he ignored; it was going to be bloody chaos whatever they said, a sidebar gave brief details of the death of a motorcyclist who had been killed two days previously. Apparently, according to the paper, the incident had happened just a few yards further along the road and just about the time when he'd set off to walk back to the flat. The motorcyclist had been riding at speed and somehow a metal rod, possibly from the scaffolding all around there, had gotten into the spokes of the bike's wheels, catapulting him, head first, over the handlebars. He'd died of head injuries at the scene of the accident. Police were appealing for witnesses to come forward.

Frowning John tried to think back to that evening. It was the first day he'd been covering at Brookfields and he may have heard the accident happen. He'd left the surgery quite late, around seven twenty or thirty, via the side door. Despite the month, it had been quite cool and drizzling so he'd been in a hurry to get back to the flat. He did remember hearing a metallic clanging sound and the squeal of tyres but neither sound was exactly uncommon so he hadn't paid it much attention plus the scaffolders had been making the same kind of racket all day on the building opposite. And it wasn't like he could actually help the police, he hadn't seen anything.

Dismissing the story of the tragic motorcyclist, he turned to another news story and patiently waited for his coffee to appear. The man in front of John was grumbling and looking at his watch, clearly annoyed about the delay. Behind him he could make out more disgruntled mutterings as well. The girl on the till was doing a meerkat impression trying to see what the hold-up could be when a different man from who had been serving him the rest of the week appeared from the staff room behind the counter. He smiled, picked up a cup and handed it to the man in front of John who bestowed a malevolent frown and left quickly.

'Sorry for the delay, Sir,' he said with a thick Eastern European accent, handing John his grande vanilla latte.

John nodded, accepted the cup and, still reading the paper, exited the shop. The scent of the vanilla was tickling his taste buds but before he could take a sip of the hot, fragrant beverage a brightly coloured streak on a skateboard caught his arm sending the coffee cup flying. The lid came off spraying the contents in a wide arc over the pavement and his coat sleeve. John looked daggers after the tall, thin, hoodie wearing youth.

'Shit!' he swore, trying to shake his coat sleeve free of the hot coffee dripping down it.

''ere you are, luv,' a plump, grey-haired woman said as she handed him a handful of paper napkins from the coffee shop. 'Blood kids, want their arses tanning, some of 'em,' she went on venomously whilst helping John wipe himself down.

'Yeah. Er, thank you, umm, thanks very much,' he stammered in reply, wondering how long she'd been in the capital given the prominence of the rugged hills of Yorkshire in her accent and speech idioms.

'You're welcome,' she replied, dumping the soiled napkins in the nearest bin and waddling on her way without a backward glance, or, as far as John could see, a hot drink.

Irritated John continued into the surgery failing to notice that after serving him the barrista had disappeared again with the consequence that the queue in the coffee shop was getting longer and curling along the pavement.

Morning surgery was busy which was helpful to John. He made it through to ten fifteen and managed to keep his yawning to between patients. The records clerk, Carole, an older, gossipy woman with improbably dark brown hair and a bottle tan brought in his hot drink, which John was more than ready for.

'Did you hear the commotion down the road,' she started with, as soon as she'd opened the door to his consulting room.

'No. What's happened?'

'The chap who does the coffees at the Java Bean collapsed and died this morning. Environmental Health have closed the place down for tests. You go in there on your way in, don't you?'

'I was there this morning,' he replied uncomfortably.

'How are you feeling?' she asked, her eyes bright and morbidly interested.

'Fine. Didn't get a chance to drink any. Some brat barged into me and knocked the cup out of my hand. Spilt the lot,' he replied, taking a cautious sip of his coffee.

'That was a stroke of luck. Angels watching over you, Dr Watson, that's what you've got. Angels watching over you,' Carole said as she left the room, anxious to pass on her findings.

When John left after the end of evening surgery yellow and black crime scene tape still decorated the darkened and forlorn Java Bean, a solitary community support officer patrolling the pavement in front. John stopped at the shop.

'Have you been in this shop today, Sir?'

John explained again what had happened.

'You sure you didn't drink any?' the officer checked.

'Positive. The pavement got most of it and I ended up wearing the rest.'

'Where did it land on you, Sir?'

'Coat sleeve mainly. Why?'

'Could you hang on a minute?'

The support officer was excitedly speaking into his radio. The crackling reply was how John ended up donating his coat for tests and being given a lift back to the flat in a police car, with clear instructions to shower and to have his other clothing laundered immediately as well. The forensics technician who took his coat and gave him the information was a whole lot pleasanter than Anderson. Then again, Anderson had only been particularly unpleasant when Sherlock had been there.

Mrs Hudson came running from her flat when the police car stopped in front of the door to decant John.

'Almost like old times,' she said wistfully ushering him indoors.

The next day John avidly scanned the morning editions for any further news on the Java Bean. He even bought a copy of the Evening Standard but again, nothing was mentioned. He wasn't really sure why this was interesting him so much apart from, like Mrs Hudson, it reminded him so strongly of what life had been like when Sherlock was there. He freely admitted to himself he missed the excitement, the strange hours, running about all over the country. Most of all he missed Sherlock. That big hole in his life wasn't getting any smaller and he doubted it ever would. He knew he was just marking time until he could take the big trip and be with Sherlock again.

That night he dreamt Sherlock was speaking to him on his mobile phone again, just as he had before he dived off the roof. This evening though the dream didn't continue on to its devastating conclusion. Instead the conversation replayed over and over. Sometimes from where he had been, on the ground, other times he was magically beside his friend, close enough to touch him. Certainly close enough to see the tears running down his face and dripping off his chin into his scarf. Sherlock's vivid green eyes turning in his direction as he repeated,

'Goodbye John.'

John can hear his own voice saying, 'No! Don't!'

Then there's that pause before Sherlock throws his phone behind him, but, in this dream, the pause lengthens to become a silence but it's not the silence of no communication, it's the silence of passions so deeply felt that expressing them honestly and completely would rip worlds apart and tear stars from their orbits. It's the silence of a heart breaking under the strain of holding on to so much emotion.

They stand facing each other, phones held tightly, and mere inches apart, close enough for John to see fresh tears well, magnifying the sea green colour of his eyes for a second before they fall.

Sherlock's lips don't shape any words; his breath doesn't caress them as they leave his mouth. He couldn't, wouldn't, have let these words go; he'd hold onto these words; cling to them, his life belt into the hereafter, the softest blanket and strongest steel armour for his soul.

It's so simple and pure and beyond the physical it will resonate throughout the rest of John's life and beyond to when all spirits are stripped bare and must take responsibility for all actions and inactions. This, the force which can hold nations together, move mountains, be the quietest whisper or the loudest scream; the gossamer touch of a babies lips to his mother's breast or the full measure of a man expended to save his friends.

That tiny pause on the rooftop was Sherlock silently giving the only gift of any real value he had left in this world; his one final gift to the man he adored; love.

John lay awake for a long time. He saw the moonlight wane and the dawn light strengthen. His head ached abominably from all the tears he'd shed but the dream and his grief were cathartic. For the first time in a long time he felt a measure of peace stealing into his broken heart. He still hurt and would miss Sherlock for the rest of his days but, today the jagged edges of his pain tore less keenly into his lacerated flesh.

On the way out for his final day as a locum at Brookfields he slipped a note under Mrs Hudson's door agreeing to accompany her to Sherlock's grave the next day.

The sun was making a spirited attempt to break through the cloud cover as John walked to work that morning. He was within five minutes of getting to the surgery, passing through an area of rather narrow streets with small alleys running off when a tumult behind him finally attracted his attention, then a woman screamed which brought up heads on both sides of the street. The woman shouted in horror,

'I think he's having a heart attack!'

John hesitated for a couple of seconds before walking quickly back the few yards to where the woman was crouched down holding the hand of a man in his thirties.

'I'm a doctor, what happened?'

The woman looked young and flustered and then very relieved when John announced his medical status.

'A man pushed him into the wall, they struggled a bit then the other man ran off and this man fell down.'

'You're not with him then?' John asked.

'Oh no, I'm on my way to work I just saw them struggling.'

As she was speaking John had been checking pulse and breathing; both of which were absent. The man's lips were cyanotic, as were his finger ends, his visible skin was rapidly taking on the grey/blue tint of anoxia. It didn't take a medical degree to see that the man needed immediate help. Laying him down flat John began external cardiac massage.

'Phone an ambulance, now,' he ordered the young woman. 'Tell the operator the patient isn't breathing.'

As he finished giving instructions he began the first round of full CPR. As he continued with compressions another man from the crowd which had formed around them stepped forward to assist.

They were on the ninth round of CPR when the first emergency responder arrived on his motorbike, followed shortly afterwards by an ambulance.

Even with three paramedics, John, all the technology and drugs at their disposal the man didn't respond. Forty-five minutes later he was pronounced at the scene.

John gave his details to the police when they arrived and then hurried on to work, a little late but it was an acceptable excuse.

All the way through early surgery John was puzzled by the man collapsing like that. Of course it wasn't unheard of for apparently fit young men to unexpectedly expire with a heart attack but it usually happened when strenuous exercise was involved. Perhaps he'd had a heart abnormality which had kicked in with what sounded like an attempted mugging but that didn't really gel with his advanced cyanotic appearance. If he had to hazard a guess he'd have said that the man had been poisoned with something which both acted quickly and deprived the tissues of oxygen.

His ten fifteen drink was accompanied by Carole asking for details on heart attack man then providing more gossip about the Java Bean.

'They're saying they found the usual coffee man dead with his neck broken and no-one seems to know where this second man was really from,' she announced dramatically.

'The second man?' John questioned, a little lost. 'I thought the coffee man collapsed with something?'

'The usual man had his neck broken and the second man, the fill in, collapsed and died.'

'Ah!' John said.

'They're saying he was poisoned!' she said, bobbing her head for emphasis.

'Isn't that why Environmental Health have closed the place down?'

'No, not that kind of poison, poison poison.'

'Poison poison?' John asked, hoping for enlightenment.

'Yes, you know, arsenic, no, not arsenic, that other stuff, serenade.'

'Cyanide?'

'Yes, like I said.' Then she was gone.

Interesting. Two men in the immediate vicinity apparently exhibiting the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. John could almost feel Sherlock's ghost laughing maniacally in his ear; 'A case!' However, case or not, it was going to have to wait, at least until after surgery had finished.

That evening John had an unexpected visitor waiting for him on his return to 221b, Lestrade.

'What time do you call this?' he asked with a smile and holding out his hand to John.

'What the hell are you doing here?' John asked.

'Can't I come and see an old friend?'

'Of course, sorry, that was really rude. Come in.'

It was only when Lestrade was sitting in the armchair opposite John nursing a cup of tea that he began to look uncomfortable.

'So, you been going in the Java Bean quite often?'

'Only this week. I was doing locum work at a surgery nearby. And you're sounding like a policeman, not an old friend now.'

Lestrade dropped his head to hide a smile.

'So why are you really here, Greg?'

'I have really been meaning to come and see you…'

John raised his eyebrows.

'But this did hasten things, so I volunteered to come and talk to you,' he admitted. 'Two people were poisoned on Wednesday, source of which was the Java Bean.'

'Yeah, I saw Environmental Health there. Have the lab results come back yet?'

'Oh yes.'

'What was it?' John asked, taking a sip of his tea and expecting to hear the name of one of the many flavours of food poisoning.

'Aconite.'

'What?'

'It wasn't food poisoning, it was deliberately introduced, John. We think it was this fella who's to blame.'

Lestrade produced a grainy photograph from his pocket and gave it to John.

'He looks like the bloke who served me.'

Lestrade nodded. 'By the marks on his face, he'd been held down and forced to drink coffee laced with aconite then he'd had his hands and mouth taped up so he couldn't get help.'

'He was forced to drink his own poison?'

'Don't feel too bad about it, he's suspected of being involved in over one hundred other cases of poisoning world wide. Born in Prague, travelled around Europe in his early days, developed an interest in botany from his mother, who was a suspect in his stepfather's murder which was by poison. He's one of the best in field. Poetic justice I'd say.'

'You said two, who was the other poor sod?'

'You.'

'Me?'

'We tested your coat and unless you've suddenly developed a green thumb and a passion for Monkshood, your coffee had enough aconite in it to kill three men.'

John just stared, dumbstruck.

'Why would anyone want to kill me?'

'To be honest we're not sure if it was meant for you or not. The city boy in front of you in the queue had some dodgy deals going, so we're keeping an open mind about who was the intended victim.'

'So who did in the poisoner?'

Lestrade shrugged. 'Turf war maybe, feeding him his own mix has an element of irony about it.'

John pulled a face, thinking.

'Just be careful, eh, don't want you taken out as well,' Lestrade said, producing a bottle of whiskey from his other pocket. 'You look like you could do with a drink.'

John got up to get glasses as Greg broke the seal.

'There's someone else you can check, if you would,' John said, a little later, looking at the room through the peaty depths of his glass.

'Yeah?'

'A chap died in front of me when I was on my way to work this morning, looked like a mugging gone wrong.'

'It happens.'

'It does, only this didn't look like the classic signs of a heart attack plus the chap was pretty young.'

'Got a name?'

John shook his head. 'Sorry. Happened at the corner of Ligmans Alley and Askworth Street.'

'Unexplained death, it'll probably be Monday before the results are through.'

John nodded.

'What are you thinking?'

John took a sip and said, 'I'd be very surprised if it was natural causes.'

Greg gave him a wry smile and saluted him with his glass.

Twenty minutes later John's phone rang. It was the Brookfields Surgery basically begging him to cover on-call the following afternoon. The usual out of hours service had let them down and they were still very short staffed. Grudgingly he agreed, took some details and hung up.

'Buggar!'

'What's up?'

'I said I'd go with Mrs Hudson to tidy up Sherlock's grave tomorrow afternoon but Brookfields need afternoon on-call cover.'

'I can go with her,' Lestrade offered immediately. 'I haven't been back to see him since the funeral.'

Later on, finishing his drink after Lestrade had left, John reflected that everyone still spoke of Sherlock in the present tense; Mycroft, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and himself. It was almost as if they were going to see an old friend who had moved away. Which was sort of what had happened.

He put his glass in the sink, locked the door, pulled the curtains in Sherlock's room then went up to bed.

Saturday afternoon on-call was surprisingly busy. He had six deaths at home to certify, all of which had been anticipated so he didn't have to inform the coroner; three cases of COPD related bronchitis and an infected finger from a cat bite. Mrs Cosgrove's records had an intriguing message under the notes section, highlighted in red, 'Beware cuddles!'. An over friendly patient? He wondered if he should take a chaperone with him, but there was no other warning like that marked on the records.

The frail, elderly lady, Mrs Cosgrove, with the infected cat bite was clearly only in her own home on sufferance. The real boss appeared to be a huge black cat who followed her around everywhere, barging into her ankles at regular intervals.

'Was it him who bit you?' John asked, nodding towards the snuffling heap of fur currently stalking the floor between Mrs Cosgrove and himself.

'Harold? Oh no! He wouldn't hurt a fly. Would you sweetheart?' she crooned at the big animal, who immediately threw himself on his back to allow her to stroke his tummy. However, as soon as John took a step towards Mrs Cosgrove to look at her finger Harold got to his feet, his eyes narrowing and a low growl issuing from deep within his throat. John had never actually been threatened by a small panther on a home visit before.

'Sit down here, Doctor,' Mrs Cosgrove said, patting the sofa seat beside her. 'Harold's all bluster, he won't bother you.'

As John sat he noticed a tiny cat in the corner who appeared to be trying its best to disappear into the furniture. No doubt keeping away from Harold, he thought.

'Hallo, who are you?' he asked, offering his hand.

Immediately a fine set of claws flashed out towards his hand, accompanied by a hiss like a steam train setting off, then the small cat was off; flying across the room, attempting to stripe Harold on the way, (Harold was obviously wise to this as he backed out of the way), through the cat flap to the outside world.

Mrs Cosgrove looked apologetically at John before saying, 'That was Cuddles. She gets a little tetchy.' Then, looking down at his hand, she exclaimed, 'Oh dear! I'll get some antiseptic.'

John looked down at the blood flowing, rich and red, from the several long stripes on his hand, which were just beginning to sting. At that moment the back door opened and a large middle-aged woman entered.

'Mavis, it's me!'

'The Doctor's here, Barbara.'

Barbara took in the scene at a glance.

'That bloody cat! Stay there Doctor, I'll get the supplies!'

So whilst Barbara, Mrs Cosgrove's next door neighbour, bathed and bandaged the deep scratches, he examined Mrs Cosgrove's finger only to find that the infection was spreading quite quickly down her hand. He wrote a script for antibiotics which Barbara promised to have filled and left them with instructions to get the doctor out again if there was no improvement by Monday.

Leaving the house he smiled grimly to himself looking down at the huge white bandage decorating his left hand. Beware Cuddles indeed. He stored away the little misadventure as another snippet to tell Sherlock.

John wrote up his notes and signed over to the night service just after six o'clock. It was turning into a nice evening, the sun had a little warmth in it and it wouldn't be setting for another two to three hours so he decided to walk back to 221b via the graveyard. Mrs Hudson and Lestrade would be long gone by now so he didn't expect to see either of them. He was just in the mood for a walk and a chat. It would be one-sided, of course, but it wouldn't be a hardship to sit with his back to the marker and enjoy the evening with Sherlock.

An hour or so later found John crouched down over Sherlock's grave. The fresh flowers Mrs Hudson and Lestrade had brought with them had fallen over. Mrs Hudson had bought a sort of grave flower vase but these flowers must have been a little top heavy or she hadn't pushed the top down far enough on the vase underneath. He righted the contraption, pushed it firmly down into the top of the grave, replaced the flowers and topped up the water from his water bottle.

'There we are,' he said, 'All tidied up. Sorry I couldn't get here this afternoon I was at work.'

He chattered on, keeping his voice quiet, intimate, just between the two of them. As he spoke he noticed water had left splash marks on the polished black gravestone. Taking out a tissue, clumsily with his right hand, he polished the marks away leaving the stone mirror smooth once more. Whilst he was busy with his housekeeping, movement behind him attracted his attention. A thick-set man was walking, swift and intent, towards Sherlock's grave. He watched the man moving closer through the black mirror for a few seconds before saying softly,

'Looks like we've got a visitor.'

The hair on the back of his neck rose, there was something not quite right here. He stood up to face the man, balancing on the balls of his feet. When the man got within five feet of the grave he lifted his head, smiled and held out his hand.

'Dr Watson! So nice to see you!'

Automatically John went to take the proffered hand then at the last second drew back a little. The man made a grab for his hand to pull him off balance, suddenly, in his other hand was a large knife, its honed blade glinting in the evening sunlight. The knife sliced through the bandage on his hand, but didn't get as far as cutting his skin. Then the man brought up the blade again. John crouched, parried the blow, wrapping the flapping bits of bandage around the weapon and attacker's wrist and wrenched, pulling him off balance enough for him to slide on the grass. John kicked out at the same moment bringing him to his knees and using the man's own momentum to thrust the blade back along his ribs. The man hissed and moved back, checking his shirt and jacket. There was a long tear in both, the shirt edge turning red.

First blood to John.

John pulled the remains of the bandage from around his hand. The scratches had begun to bleed again but he needed to be free of any encumbrances, this bloke had all the moves and looked like he meant business.

To his surprise the man grinned, bearing his teeth.

'Nice move Doctor.'

'Thank you,' John replied not taking his eyes off him. 'Mind telling me who you are and what this is all about?'

'Very funny, Dr Watson. Holmes warned you, didn't he? Ask him, he's been hunting me for weeks. I thought I'd managed to lose him.'

'I've not seen Mycroft in weeks,' John replied, circling around and keeping a very wary distance.

'Not Mycroft. Sherlock.'

John briefly glanced at the gold letters beside them then back at his attacker.

'Sherlock's been dead for months. You're standing on his grave.'

'Don't try to make a fool out of me,' he replied harshly, suddenly switching his hold on the knife and throwing it. It sailed towards him but he dove and rolled, getting the grave marker between him and the other man just in case he had other weapons but to his surprise the man dropped to his knees gasping for air.

'I'm not quite that stupid,' John said, thinking this was a trick to get him to render assistance.

'Nothing you can do,' the man wheezed. 'Curare on the blade.'

John and the man faced off across the length of the grave.

The man frowned and between gasping for air said in puzzlement, 'You really don't know, do you?' then he stopped breathing completely and fell forwards onto his face.

John remained staring at the body for a full minute before retrieving the knife, being careful to only touch the hilt, from where it had embedded itself in the tree beyond Sherlock's grave. He knew it was a perfectly balanced weapon as soon as he touched it. Good for throwing and hand to hand combat. With the addition of curare on the blade any cut from the knife, no matter how small, would be lethal within a few minutes.

His gaze flicked between the man and the knife in his hand. He'd just survived an attempt on his life by someone who thought that not only was Sherlock was still alive but had also been actively hunting him.

Holding the knife ready John checked the man; no heartbeat, no breathing. Under the circumstances CPR would be a waste of his time and energy although he really would have liked answers to a few questions he had. Moving onto his pockets, John found that the man had cash on him but no id and no bank cards. Suspicious in itself.

He dragged the body over to the tree and propped it there, making it look like the man was having a snooze then he sat cross legged with his back to the black marble, and drove the knife into the ground, blade first, in front of him. He put his hand to his face, not really surprised when it came away wet. He sniffed and wiped the tears away on his sleeve but it didn't stop more appearing.

This happened every time he thought he was coming to terms with the hurt and loss, then something would happen and he'd be back to feeling his grief, fresh and raw again. For a few minutes he couldn't do anything apart from let the tears fall but slowly and gradually he managed to push the endless pain back inside and slam the lid on. He took several gulps of water and leaned against the cold, polished back of Sherlock's gravestone breathing erratically before he started to calm down.

He had no idea what to think. Could the assassin be correct? Or was he just a poor deluded psycho who'd chosen John on a whim and picked Sherlock's name from his gravestone. Then John remembered the aconite flavoured coffee and the man who'd died of what he suspected was cyanide poisoning yesterday. OK, he had no proof for that one only a strong suspicion. Were they all connected or was he just getting paranoid? And what was all that about Sherlock hunting the knife-man? Sherlock would never have put his friends and his family through the charade of faking his death, put him through months of pain and anguish. No, that was stupid. He'd watched the man take a swan dive from the roof of Bart's hospital. He'd seen his broken body on the pavement, seen his blood leaking all over the concrete, checked for a pulse and not found one, for God's sake. The stone cold professional Doctor at the back of his head wondered if he were having a psychotic break. If he was, whilst confusing and uncomfortable, it wasn't quite as unpleasant as he'd been led to believe. He wondered if he should perhaps call Ella when he got back to the flat.

The sound of running footsteps transmitting themselves through the earth impinged on his cogitations. John looked over the top of the gravestone to see a tall, very, very slim man running between the gravestones from the entrance of the graveyard. His hair was covered with a black woolly hat, his dark leather jacket was open, flying in the wind of his passage and showing off a skinny chest in a white t-shirt. His black jeans made his legs look very long and thin. As the man got near enough for John to make out his features he closed his eyes on a fresh wave of tears and sat back down suddenly. Another of his phantoms – the man looked like a wild unkempt version of Sherlock. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He eyed the knife in front of him. Then again, there were always ways out if you looked hard enough.

The wildman slithered to a stop beside him, breathless.

'John! John, are you alright? Did he cut you?' Then his eye fell on the bleeding cuts on his hand and his face fell. 'Oh God, no!' He stared, horrified, through sudden tears, at the blood seeping sluggishly down John's hand. Then he snatched up part of the blood stained bandage and wrapped it tightly around his upper arm in a tourniquet.

'Don't bother,' John told him quietly, removing the bandage whilst staring quite mesmerised at the man's dark auburn beard and 'tash which patchily covered the lower half of his face. 'There's no antidote to curare.'

The man was sniffing hard and saying, 'John, I am so sorry I didn't get here in time. I am so, so sorry.'

Suddenly John was wrapped in the man's arms, John's head buried in his chest and he was rocking him like a child whilst trying to stifle his sobs.

John allowed it for a few minutes. He could feel the tremors coursing through the other man's body and the trembling of his limbs whilst his heartbeat was so fast and hard it was deafening him.

He pushed against the warm chest so that his arms loosened.

'Who was he?' John asked, nodding at the knife man.

'Kadnikov,' he sniffed.

'Before he died he told me you'd been hunting him for weeks.'

Sherlock nodded, miserably.

'I've been hunting them all, turning them against one another, stepping in if they got too close to you, or Lestrade or Mrs Hudson,' he sniffed and shook his head. 'I've failed you,' he whispered.

John was amazingly calm as he asked, 'Are there any more threats?'

Sherlock shook his head, his curls, longer than before, bouncing around the bottom of the woolly hat.

'He was the last one.'

John thought and asked,

'The coffee?'

Sherlock nodded. 'If I hadn't knocked the cup out of your hands the woman who helped you to mop up would have done. The motorcyclist was another one; he was going to crush you against the scaffolding. The man who had the heart attack was going to inject you with cyanide. I turned his own syringe on him first.'

'Any others?' John asked. He couldn't actually say he was appalled at the litany of crimes because practically the first day they'd got together John had shot the cabbie for Sherlock. He just hadn't realised how far Sherlock was prepared to go.

Sherlock took a deep breath and nodded. 'There were three others. If they killed each other then they got their own fee for the target kill plus the fees of whoever else they'd killed. The first target was you, then Mrs Hudson then Lestrade, in that order. Kadnikov killed the other three.' Sherlock wiped his face seemingly unable to take his eyes from John's face.

John could literally see him committing his features to memory. Still icily calm he pushed against Sherlock so he could stand up.

'No, John don't. Moving around makes the curare work quicker.'

John ignored him and stood, taking a good look at Sherlock. He was definitely thinner than ever, dark circles under his eyes and under his cheekbones distorted the top half of his face and the unexpected auburn beard covered the lower half. He could have walked past Sherlock in the street and barely recognised him. The face avidly devouring his own features reminded John of the face he saw in the mirror every morning, skull like with exhaustion showing in every line and crease.

In the depths of his mind John considered it a testament to just how upset Sherlock was that he hadn't realised if John had really been cut with Kadnikov's knife he would have died several minutes ago.

'So since you faked your own death four and a half months ago, you've been hunting down this death squad. Were you going to let any of us know you were still alive at any point?' he asked, his rage at the pain this man had caused him not quite there yet but it was in the post.

'When I'd dealt with the last of them. When I knew you were finally safe.'

'So, about now then?'

Sherlock's face crumpled before he caught himself with a massive effort.

'Short reunion eh, Sherlock? Hi John, sorry I made the last four and a half months of your life a total living Hell. No worries Sherlock, I'm sure you had your reasons.'

Sherlock controlled his trembling voice and said quietly,

'Moriaty gave me a choice, jump off the roof or his assassins would kill you, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. There was a gun pointed at your head when I was standing on the roof. I couldn't let you die, John.'

John stared into the tear stained visage above him and said slowly and deliberately,

'But you did let me die Sherlock. You've been killing me for months. You ripped the heart out of me the day I saw you jump off that roof. I really and truly thought you had committed suicide and I didn't know why. I've had to live with not knowing why all this time.'

Sherlock was sobbing silently in front of John now his whole body shaking. John could feel his heart breaking all over again but he carried on. Sherlock had to know.

'It wouldn't have killed you to tell us, to take some of the pain away. Even if you couldn't be with us at least we'd have known you were alive, alive and safe, somewhere. And we would have had a little more time together.'

'Please forgive me, John,' Sherlock whispered brokenly. 'I thought I was keeping you all safe, I didn't dare risk telling any of you. And now…' Sherlock lowered his head, unable to continue.

For a few seconds John thought Sherlock might actually shatter in front of him when he sank to his knees. Hesitantly he took Sherlock's hands and slowly drew him into an embrace.

'Hurts, doesn't it?' he asked.

Sherlock nodded, unable to speak.

'Now imagine that pain, day in, day out whilst you have to put a normal face on and carry on eating, drinking, sleeping and working.'

John held Sherlock as he soaked his shirt front. After a couple of minutes John decided to call a halt but Sherlock wasn't listening. John felt him twist to the side and looked down. Sherlock had taken Kadnikov's knife from the grass and was holding it.

'No!' John said, immediately taking it out of his grasp. 'No,' he repeated.

Sherlock nodded, rolling up his jacket sleeve then holding out his forearm. He sniffed and wiped his eyes then held out his hand for the knife.

'There'll be enough left on the blade for me.'

'No,' John said again. 'I won't let you cut yourself.'

'You do it then,' Sherlock said, holding out his bared forearm again.

'Sherlock, you don't believe in God or an afterlife, why would you do that?'

'I'm not as strong as you, John and I've failed you. My arrogance in thinking I could protect you has caused your death. I can't live with that. I don't want to live with that,' he said, looking up at John through red rimmed eyes.

John was rendered speechless by Sherlock's willingness to sacrifice himself. What had started out as a touch of payback was ending with John feeling about three inches tall and in total awe of what this man was willing to do for his friends.

'You bloody well would, as well, wouldn't you?'

Sherlock barely moved his head, all his attention on the knife in John's hand.

'I'm not dying, Sherlock!' John snapped, his anger, no longer on a slow boil, ignited like a fifth of November firework.

Sherlock glanced at his hand, the knife then back to his face.

'The most mis-named cat in Christendom laid her claws into me this afternoon when I was visiting a patient. They're not knife cuts they're deep scratches.'

Sherlock had gone very still.

'I'm a soldier, Sherlock, I do know hand to hand combat. Kadnikov never got near me. He tried to catch me off guard and it cost him his life.'

'You lied to me?'

'Yes, I lied to you. I'm angry and hurting and I have been for a long time. I wanted you to know what that feels like.'

He glared at the slow dawn of joy spreading over Sherlock's face.

'You're sure he didn't cut you?'

'Quite sure. Curare works fairly fast,' he almost snarled.

With that John turned, faced forward and marched away. He was shaking and could hardly breathe he was so angry but the anger was shot through with streaks of relief.

'John!'

John ignored him.

After eleven steps the image of Sherlock on the roof of Barts rose up, unbidden, before his eyes. He remembered the sacrifice of love Sherlock had gifted to him; the image of him bloodied on the pavement made him feel sick. That had been a lie, somehow. He didn't know how yet but, by God, he would damned well find out. And he remembered the pain of loss he'd been going through, how at first he'd bent the ear of any deity he could think of to let Sherlock not be dead. Now he had his wish could he really just walk away from him?

Walking back his doctor's eye noted just how dreadful Sherlock actually looked. He hadn't been a highly fleshed man before, now he wouldn't look out of place in an anorexia treatment ward. His was the appearance of a man running on too little food and sleep and too much adrenaline and fear.

'For the record Sherlock, I'm ecstatic you're alive.'

'But you're angry, very angry.'

John nodded.

'This is going to take time,' John warned him, gratified when Sherlock agreed with a nod of his head.

He stared directly into Sherlock's changeable green eyes and like the tumblers of a lock sliding into the correct sequence John's world realigned itself. Relief swamped his rage bringing stillness and tranquillity flowing into his heart and mind. He was right where he belonged, at this man's side. Without saying a word they swayed towards each other, resting with foreheads together and eyes closed they took a moment to simply be.

John had no idea what the future would bring or what might happen in that undiscovered country ahead but he already knew one unshakable certainty; his soul and Sherlock's belonged together.


End file.
